About FM Tutorials

My Search For Understanding

FM Tutorials came about due to my frustration in 2002 when I was trying to learn FileMaker Pro. I couldn’t find a well written and easy to understand manual. There just didn’t seem to be anybody out there who had taken the time to put together a manual for somebody who didn’t know much about databases. At the time, I had fumbled along with the user manual but found it too abstract to be easily understood by a common man such as myself (or maybe I was just too dumb).

I eventually got to understand more about FileMaker the more I fooled around with it. I have to admit, however, it was a tedious and painstaking process. I was lucky to find individuals who were patient and generous enough to occasionally send me emails that answered my questions and confusions.

Helping Others: The Backbone of Development

In my adventures with using the program, I was always amazed to discover that the answers tended to be very simple once I understood how FileMaker was structured. There just wasn’t an easy reference on the subject online that could do the job of teaching it in a simple manner.

After a few years of building FileMaker applications for friends, family, and a few small businesses, I really dove into the subject and started developing FileMaker applications in 2006. Beginning with version 8.0, I became an avid FileMaker user and developer.

I worked on both small and large projects, including an inventory application which served 25 concurrent users, and enabled them to generate quotations and work orders, as well as track and store inventory records and formulations for nutritional supplements–and all of this with what I had learned about FileMaker Pro.

What I came to realize, is that I never really liked programming. I found it tedious and somewhat time consuming. What I had actually fallen in love with was the ability to make a person’s work easier and more efficient. It was quite gratifying to see the smiles on people’s faces when they could finally perform a task in a few seconds that used to take them hours. And that is how and why I became a FileMaker Developer.

What Was Missing

It dawned on me somewhere along the line, that what I was lacking all that time was a more visual illustration of key concepts. Had I had that since the beginning, I would have picked up the subject much more quickly. I recalled the manual I had started out with and reread it and it was clear that there wasn’t enough visual explanation throughout. I got to work and began to put down in video form what I had learned and shared it on YouTube so people could easily educate themselves from my tutorials.

The channel was an instant success. I now have 1500+ subscribers and my videos have been viewed over 360,000 times. The general feedback tends to be: thanks for making it simple to understand! So, I learned more than just FileMaker. I discovered a bit more about how to teach. Almost every time I make a lesson, I also learn something new I didn’t know before.

I hope this blog helps to give you a better grasp of this incredibly powerful software application and assists you in becoming a more skillful developer.